Alex Balbuena, 18, naturalized after a Citizenship Day earlier this year and was excited for the opportunities it afforded.
Alex Balbuena, 18, naturalized after a Citizenship Day earlier this year and was excited for the opportunities it afforded.

The following is an announcement from OneAmerica:

Over 8.8 million Americans are eligible to become citizens, including more than 263,000 in Washington, but have yet to take the final steps to naturalization. In the seven years Washington New Americans and AILA-WA have conducted Citizenship Day, more than 5,000 Washingtonians have become citizens through Citizenship Day. This year, hundreds more will follow in their steps on the coming Saturday, September 17, from 10am to 3pm, in three different locations at Renton Technical College, at Wenatchee Valley College, and at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, WA.

Citizenship Day is a semi-annual free legal clinic that pairs eligible green card-holders with pro-bono attorneys for help with their citizenship paperwork, as part of the Washington New Americans program and in partnership with the American Immigration Lawyers Association of Washington (AILA-WA). Citizenship Day seeks to remove barriers immigrants who want to become citizens face, such as a lack of knowledge about the process and a lack of access to advice from an immigration attorney.

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